Boko Haram: Jonathan Urged To Declare State Of Emergency In Northern States

President Goodluck Jonathan was, Tuesday, urged to declare a state of emergency in all northern states where Boko Haram has been causing violence and wreaking untold hardship on innocent citizens.

A prominent member of South-South Leaders and Eldlers Forum, Chief Richard Lamai, who made the call in Lagos, said the political leadership in those states have abdicated their responsibility to their people.

He said: “Boko Haram started as a tool of political blackmail against President Jonathan, the first president from the minority tribe, and some northern elite in Borno, Yobe and Taraba vowed that they would make the nation ungovernable. But today, they have lost control over it and the fanatics do not listen to them any longer because they have now embarked on an agenda of destroying the North which invariably will affect the whole nation.

“These miscreants are wreaking havoc in the North and the leadership of the region has kept quiet. The men they armed have found out that those who sponsored them in the first place, are actually the cause of the abject poverty and lack of development of the region.

“The situation today in the region is so bad that the only way sanity can be brought back to the region is a declaration of a state of emergency that will allow for the enthronement of a template for development, so that by the time peace is restored no political leader will have the guts to loot the commonwealth of the region.”

Chief Lamai explained that what makes a declaration of emergency in the violent prone states of the region imperative is that the region has suddenly lost any form of leadership and a flock without a shepherd will surely go astray.